Under Fire Read online

  • • •

  THEY SLEPT until Jack’s watch woke him at six-thirty; then they walked out to the main room. Medzhid had returned and was sitting at the conference table with Seth and Spellman. A variety of steaming dishes and bowls were arrayed before them.

  “Jack, we were just going to wake you,” called Medzhid. “Come join us.”

  They sat down. Ysabel filled a plate for Jack, and then for herself.

  “My goodness, Ysabel, what happened to your face?” asked Medzhid.

  “Just a little accident.”

  “I’ll call my—”

  “I’m fine, really. Jack’s not a half-bad nurse.”

  “Jack’s a good man,” Seth said.

  He meant it, Jack decided.

  “You could do a lot worse, Ysabel. He’s a keeper.”

  Ysabel smiled at him. “Thank you for saying that, Seth.”

  Medzhid chuckled. “Jack in a nurse’s uniform . . . That is something I would like to see.”

  “Seconded,” Spellman replied.

  “Never going to happen, guys. By the way, where are Anton and Vasim?”

  “I gave them the evening off. They’ve had no time to themselves for several weeks now.”

  Jack and Spellman exchanged glances. The CIA man nodded, then asked, “When are they back on duty?”

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  Seth said, “This feels weird, enjoying a pleasant meal right before all hell is about to break loose.”

  “Enjoy the eye while the eye watches you, Seth.”

  “Pardon?”

  “It’s an old Avar proverb. You see, right now we’re in the eye of the hurricane. Relish this time before the trailing edge arrives. We’ve defeated our enemies, if only temporarily, and an old friend of mine is alive and safe. Tonight is for contentment.”

  “Well said,” Jack replied. “In fact, do you mind if I invite a friend?” It didn’t seem right that Dom was sitting alone in his motel room eating not–Jimmy John’s.

  “As long as it’s not the kind of friend you brought me from Bamlag, then by all means. I will call down to the garage and tell the guard to expect him.”

  • • •

  DOM ARRIVED thirty minutes later. As he stepped into the suite, he looked around and let out a low whistle. “Well, Jack, seeing as you blew my cover for this, I’ll forgive you.”

  Jack led him to the table and introduced him to Medzhid, who stood up, shook Dom’s hand, and gestured to a seat. “Join us. Let me see, now . . . You look Italian, perhaps Greek. So, Domenico or Domenikos?”

  “Right the first time.”

  “And how do you know—” Medzhid stopped and held up his hands, smiling. “Never mind. I don’t actually know who Jack is, so why spoil a good thing? Where has he been keeping you, Dom?”

  “In a crappy motel with cockroaches the size of hamsters.”

  “Not true,” Jack said.

  “Shame on you. Dom, you will stay here. Jack and Ysabel will double up, won’t you?” Medzhid asked with a half-smile.

  “Of course,” Ysabel replied.

  Unexpectedly, Jack felt the tension draining from his body. It took a few moments to realize why. As bizarre as it was, this group had become not quite a family, but something similar to that, albeit a dysfunctional and temporary one that had been brought together for a deadly serious purpose. At least for right now, though, he could forget about that. The coup, Wellesley, Pechkin, and everything else would be there the next day. Enjoy the eye while the eye watches you, he thought.

  They talked and ate and laughed, and Seth seemed almost like his old self, but still there was a sadness just beneath his smile. Jack wondered if Seth was even aware of it. He didn’t blame his friend. Paul Gregory had been branded a traitor, tossed out like garbage, then hounded by the very government he’d served so loyally until finally he’d put a gun to his head. And he’d kept it all hidden from his only son. All things considered, Seth was bearing up pretty well, especially given the difficulty of what he and Spellman were trying to accomplish here.

  Jack only hoped his friend wasn’t secretly unraveling, as his father had done before him.

  Medzhid said across the table, “Jack, Matt tells me Pechkin slipped out of our grasp again.”

  Spellman caught Jack’s eye and gave a slight shake of his head.

  “Something like that. Listen, I hate to ruin the mood—”

  “My mood is unruinable, Jack. Go ahead.”

  “Where are we with Captain Salko?”

  “Nowhere. He is not talking, but I expected that. As for the ERF itself . . . I have confined them to barracks. They were told Salko was arrested for corruption and that his disgrace has unfortunately cast them in a bad light. I have people interviewing each and every one of them.”

  “I doubt that’ll prove anything,” said Seth.

  “My people are very good at what they do. They know the questions to ask. If Salko had cohorts, we will find them. The ones who are shown to be loyal will receive a personal visit from me and my thanks. Stick first, then carrot. I know my troops. By morning, we’ll have the bad ones culled.”

  They ate and talked for another hour before Dom checked his watch, then excused himself and gestured Jack and Matt off to the side. “I’m heading downtown. Zoya Vetochkina is pulling an all-nighter. The Department of Culture is putting on some new exhibit tomorrow. Be ready to move if I call.”

  “Will do,” said Jack.

  “Ysabel, too. She and Zoya look a lot alike.”

  • • •

  DOM CALLED AT TEN. “I had to use a coat hanger on her car door, but I got the key card and permit. I’m heading over to Chirpoy now.”

  “We’ll meet you there,” Jack replied.

  He, Ysabel, and Spellman took Seth’s Suburban to Dom’s stakeout spot. As they pulled to the curb he got out of the Lada and climbed into the backseat next to Spellman. He handed the key card and permit over the seat to Ysabel in the driver’s seat.

  “What do I do?” she asked.

  “Just swipe and go through. There’s no camera or guard at the gate.”

  “Does it matter that we’re not in Zoya’s car?”

  “I don’t think so. We’ll find out.”

  “That sounds easy enough,” said Ysabel. “Heads down, boys.”

  Jack crouched on the floorboard as Ysabel circled the block, then turned into the driveway. She rolled down her window, swiped the card, then pulled through.

  “There’s a door opening at the far end,” she said.

  “Wave that permit at him,” Dom said. “If he doesn’t wave and go back inside, or he comes back out with a rocket launcher, say so.”

  “What?”

  “He’s kidding,” Jack said.

  Ysabel stuck the permit out the window. “He’s waving. He’s going back inside. The door’s closed.”

  Jack said, “Zoya’s is the sixth stall on the right.”

  Ysabel turned into the spot, put the Suburban in park, and shut off the engine. “Now what?”

  “Do what Zoya would do. Once you open the door, have a quick look around. If it’s clear, we’ll come in.”

  Ysabel opened her door and climbed out.

  From across the parking lot, a male voice called, “Privet, krasavitsa.”

  Ysabel whispered, “Jack, it’s one of the goons.”

  “He’s saying hi.”

  “I know what a regular ‘Hi’ sounds like. He’s hitting on me. He’s coming this way.”

  “Just say, ‘Spoki, mne nado idti,’ then point to your phone, raise it to your ear, and head for your door.”

  She did so, and the guard replied, “Khorosho!”

  “Okay, he’s going back into the apartment,” Ysabel whispered. “You’re clear. Come on.”

  The three
of them climbed out the Suburban’s passenger side, then entered Zoya’s apartment. Ysabel locked the door behind them.

  “Creepy guy,” she said. “What did I say to him?”

  “Oh, you don’t wanna know,” Dom said.

  “Hush.” She walked into the kitchen and turned on the overhead light.

  Zoya Vetochkina’s apartment was tiny, three hundred square feet of bedroom, bathroom, front room, and kitchenette, with white walls and furniture that might have actually looked better with some duct-tape adornment—not the decor a woman from the Department of Culture would choose for herself, Jack thought. She was probably counting the minutes until her house was finished being bug-bombed.

  “Do we know which apartment belongs to Wellesley?” asked Ysabel.

  “Let’s find out,” Jack said, and pulled out his phone. He punched in Pechkin’s number and hit send. He wasn’t even sure their ploy would work; depending on what kind of forwarding system Wellesley was using, incoming calls might be soundless.

  “It’s ringing.”

  He put his fingers to his lips and gestured for the others to spread out.

  Posted in the room’s four corners, the four of them listened.

  Jack held up one finger . . . two fingers . . . three fingers . . .

  Dom raised his hand and pointed above his head. “Second floor. Old-timey ringtone.”

  Jack ended the call. “Let’s go to headsets.”

  He, Dom, and Spellman donned theirs. “Dom, you and Ysabel stay here. If one of the goons shows, give a holler.”

  Jack peeked out the front door. All was clear. With Spellman on his heels, he walked down the sidewalk to the stairwell, then took it to the second floor.

  “Dom, call it again,” Jack said.

  “Sending it now.”

  Jack trotted down the balcony, hand resting on the rail until he reached the halfway point, then stopped and turned to face Spellman. They listened.

  Faintly, Jack heard brng-brng. He turned his head, trying to localize the sound.

  Brng-brng . . .

  Spellman strode forward, hand cupped as he passed doors. He stopped beside apartment 206, gave Jack a thumbs-up, then pressed his ear against the door. He gave Jack another thumbs-up. “Okay, let’s see if this thing of Gavin’s works.”

  Jack knelt by the door and pulled from his pocket a thumb-sized circuit board taped to a nine-volt battery; jutting from the edge of the board was a brass-colored plug. Jack ran his index finger along the bottom of the lock, found the indentation, then inserted the plug.

  The lock started flashing red. As Gavin had instructed, Jack waited until the light first turned amber, then started flashing faster. No alarm system. He removed the plug and then reinserted it. The lock flashed green and the dead bolt clicked open.

  Spellman whispered, “I gotta tell our DS-and-T guys about this thing. Probably save the government millions.”

  Jack opened the door and they stepped through.

  “Dom, we’re in.”

  “Roger. All’s quiet down here.”

  Jack immediately felt a chill envelop him. Above the window, cool air was gushing from a wall-mounted A/C unit. While the apartment was the same size as Zoya’s, the walls here had been crudely ripped down, leaving studs but no drywall, save what chunks were still nailed to the two-by-fours. Taking up most of the space was a circular table in whose center sat a pyramid of six computer tower hard drives, each of which was attached to an LCD monitor whose swirling multicolored screen savers cast shadows on the apartment’s walls. Dangling from the ceiling above all this was a bundle of zip-tied cables, from coaxial to standard phone and several Jack didn’t recognize. He looked for cables connecting any of the towers but saw none.

  “Sure looks like a nerve center, doesn’t it?” Spellman whispered.

  Jack nodded. “Start taking pictures.”

  He sat down before one of the monitors, put on his gloves, then tapped the keyboard to wake the monitor. An administrator log-in page appeared.

  “No surprise there.” Jack dialed Gavin and put him on speakerphone. Jack explained what he was seeing.

  “Operating system?”

  “Windows Vista.”

  “Fantastic. Don’t worry about the password. We won’t be able to brute-force it from your side of the screen. Are there USB ports?”

  Jack checked the tower behind his monitor. “Yeah, but they’ve got plug locks.”

  “Optical drive?”

  “Yes, and it’s clear.”

  “Okay, let’s see if these guys think small. Get out that CD I downloaded to you, the one called ‘PoodleCrack,’ then press and hold the computer’s power button until it shuts down, and then power it up again. When you hear the start-up chime, insert the CD and tell me what you see.”

  Jack did all this and then said, “Admin log-in again.”

  “Okay. Repeat the process, but hold down the left mouse button to eject the CD, then stick in the one labeled ‘WidgeonRescue,’ then tell me what you see.”

  When the screen reappeared the log-in page was gone, replaced by a black screen with white block lettering.

  “I’m in the command line screen,” said Jack.

  “Ha!” Gavin blurted. “You’d be surprised how many people don’t reboot-protect their systems—even guys like Wellesley and Pechkin. Okay, now type in those commands I gave you and tell me if you get any ‘Yes’ answers.”

  Jack did so. “Nothing.”

  “That means there’s no key-logger stuff on there. Do that with every drive before you start digging into any files.”

  Jack disconnected. “Matt, you get started on the next one.”

  They concentrated on sorting folders by size, then files by extension type and whether or not they were encrypted. Aside from the standard folders and applications the systems were shipped with, they found nothing of interest on the first four computers. Whether they had missed anything, Jack didn’t know, but short of cloning each hard drive and uploading it for Gavin to dissect, they could only keep moving.

  Spellman said, “Jack, about Anton and Vasim: I can probably get their addresses. We can pay them a visit and use Pechkin’s phone to nail whichever one has turned.”

  “It’s tempting, but we need Medzhid in the room when it happens. Plus, who knows, maybe both their phones would ring.”

  At the fifth computer, neither the PoodleCrack nor the WidgeonRescue got Jack to the command line. Jack rebooted, then inserted the final CD that Gavin had given him, labeled “GongShowItAll.” This did the trick.

  Spellman stood up from his monitor and leaned over Jack’s shoulder. “You got something?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” Jack replied, his eyes scanning the directory names.

  “There, try that one,” Spellman said, tapping the screen.

  Jack clicked on the file labeled “Khibiny-Borisoglebsk” and the text document opened. It was one page long and covered in thirty-four lines of characters, in almost identical formats:

  Hepo5..38GZT.703971mE.4759623mN

  Zore6.38GTZ.703408.62mE4759419.87mN

  Gaxy4..38GTZ.702170.47mE.4758546.44mN

  Gefo9..38GZT.706544.22mE.4757843.69mN

  Cuce4.38GZT.704959.76mE.4760436.66mN

  Xole8..38GZT.702999.03mE.4760085.31mN

  Juky6.38GZT.704430.97mE.4759664.05mN

  Hevu9,,38GZT.704185.57mE.4760505.20mN

  “What the hell is that?” Spellman whispered, squinting at the screen.

  “I have no idea.”

  Jack dialed Gavin back and said, “You need to see this.”

  “Go into network settings and give me your IP address.” Jack did this, then waited as Gavin set himself up a remote access port. “Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff here, but it’d take days to clone it all. I’ll just grab whatever looks juicy.” />
  “Great, bye.”

  Dom’s voice came over Jack’s headset. “We may have a problem down here. Somebody’s at the door—Ysabel’s new boyfriend, we think.”

  In the background, Jack could hear the man lightly tapping on the door with his finger. “. . . vodka, krasavitsa.” I have vodka, beautiful.

  Jack thought for a moment. His grasp of Russian was being stretched. “Tell her to slap the door, shout ‘ukhodi’ then ‘otchet,’ followed by ‘mer.’”

  Dom did this and Jack heard Ysabel shouting.

  “Izvinite, izvinite . . .”

  Dom said, “He’s going away. She wants to know what she said.”

  “For him to go away or she’ll report him to the mayor.”

  “You also suggested they were married,” Spellman said.

  “Oops. Dom, we’re almost done up here.”

  “We’ll meet you back at the Suburban.”

  Makhachkala

  THE NEXT MORNING after breakfast, as Medzhid was getting ready to go into the Ministry, Jack, Ysabel, Dom, Spellman, and Seth sat down at the conference table. Jack ran through the plan one more time. “I don’t expect it to go bad, but assume it will.” Advice you should have taken with Pechkin, he reminded himself. “Either way, Medzhid will want to find a way to dismiss it. We can’t let him. This close to the coup, he needs to get his head right. Questions?”

  Seth said, “I hope you’re wrong about this.”

  “I’m not, but if I am we’ve got much bigger problems.”

  Now that Jack had already decided that Seth, Spellman, and Medzhid were innocent of burning him and Ysabel in Khasavyurt, only two suspects remained: Anton and Vasmin. But which one?

  Followed by his personal assistant Albina, Medzhid strode down the hallway from his suite, adjusting his tie and cuffs as he walked. “Good morning, everyone. I will be—”

  “Rebaz, we need to chat.”

  “I am running late, Jack. Can we do it later?”

  “No. Anton and Vasim should hear this, too.”

  Medzhid frowned. “Jack, I don’t like the expression on your face. What is going on?”

  “Just call them and I’ll explain.”